<p><b>Tender and bittersweet, these stories by Truman Capote,</b> <b>the author of <i>Breakfast at Tiffany's</i>,</b><b><br>are a captivating tribute to the Christmas season<br></b><br><i>'We set about choosing a tree. "It should be," muses my friend, "twice as tall as a boy. So a boy can't steal the star."'<br></i><br>Selected from across Truman Capote's writing life, these Christmas stories range from nostalgic, semi-autobiographical portraits of childhood to more unsettling tales of darkness beneath the festive glitter. In the Deep South of Capote's youth, a young boy, Buddy, and his beloved maiden 'aunt' Sook forage for pecans and whiskey to bake into fruitcakes, make kites - too broke to buy gifts - and rise before dawn to prepare feasts for a ragged assembly of guests; while in other stories, a lonely woman has a troubling encounter in wintry New York and an unlikely festive miracle, of sorts, occurs at a local drugstore.<br><br><b>Brimming with feeling, these sparkling tales convey both the wonder and the chill of Christmas time.</b></p>